bjb@nvzg2.UUCP (Bernie Brown) (02/20/86)
In an article Roy Smith wrote: > I hereby propose that net.general be deleted. and went on to describe how you should cast your vote with the following notice of what happens if you just reply without changing the subject line: > If you want to vote "no", make sure the Subject line has the > string "keep net.general" in it. If you reply to this article and don't > alter the subject, the Subject line will, by default, say "Re: Let's > delete net.general" -- this will be counted as a "yes" vote by my shell > script regardless of what you say in the body of the letter. Sounds like a beautiful way to stuff the ballot box. Hand the voter a marked ballot. If s/he doesn't change it, that must me the way s/he wants it marked. Roy, Put a neutral heading on it and at least make people think a 'little bit'. -- Keep the Dream Alive Bernie Brown UUCP ...!ihnp4!codas!nvzg2!bjb This is my commentary not AT&T's. I don't know, nor care, if they care anyway.
roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (02/22/86)
In article <377@nvzg2.UUCP> bjb@nvzg2.UUCP (Bernie Brown) writes: [regarding the default subject on a reply being a "yes" vote] > >Sounds like a beautiful way to stuff the ballot box. Hand the voter a marked >ballot. If s/he doesn't change it, that must me the way s/he wants it marked. You won't get any argument from me that there is a built-in bias to the way I have things set up. The bias is unintentional, however. I did not realize the problem until the first votes started coming in. Changing the rules in mid-stream seemed like the wrong way to fix things. Given that we were already working under a flawed set of rules, I posted a detailed followup explaining exactly what was going on. My hope was that between the original article and the followup, there won't be any confusion as to the proper way to cast votes. In addition, it has become apparent to me that keeping with my original intention of having the vote tallied totally by machine just wouldn't be fair. I will be scanning through the votes manually to correct "mistakes". As for stuffing the ballot box, a quick count shows maybe a dozen people who unintentionally cast "yes" votes when they wanted to say "no". A more disturbing problem (in my mind) is the intentional ballot box stuffing going on. One person sent me 10 copies of a "no" vote with the explanation that they should offset the accidental "yes" votes. Since he didn't include the "discussion" keyword, I can only assume he didn't intend for me to discover this. Another person was apparently under the impression that I was counting votes in the body (instead of the Subject line) and sent me a bunch of "no" votes which (if I was was totally relying on automated counting) would have been counted as a "yes". [Note: votes should *NOT* be sent directly to me; send them to gen-vote@phri.UUCP] -- Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute 455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016